¹¹Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad^a the prophet, David’s seer:^b ¹²“Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’ ”

¹³So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three^b years of famine^c in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague^d in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”

¹⁴David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy^e is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”

¹⁵So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.^f ¹⁶When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented^g concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord^h was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd,^c have done wrong. These are but sheep.ⁱ What have they done?^j Let your hand fall on me and my family.”^k

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Footnotes

bSeptuagint (see also 1 Chron. 21:12); Hebrew seven
cDead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint; Masoretic Text does not have the shepherd.

Cross references

aSee 1 Sa 22:5
b 1 Sa 9:9
c Dt 28:38–42, 48; See 32:24; Eze 14:21
dSee Ex 5:3; See 30:12; See Lev 26:25; Dt 28:21–22, 27–28, 35
e Ne 9:28; Ps 4:1; 51:1; 86:5; 103:8, 13; 119:132; 130:4; Isa 54:7; 55:7; Jer 33:8; 42:12; Da 9:9
f 1 Ch 27:24
gSee Ge 6:6
hSee Ge 16:7; See 19:13; See Ex 12:23; Ac 12:23
i Ps 74:1; 100:3; Jer 49:20
jSee Ge 18:23
k Jnh 1:12